Tag Archives: sweden

I updated this in light of the current gun debate and added some thoughts on the spiritual parallels.

A now-defunct blog made some important distinctions between three types of people:

Sheep, the “kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep.”

Wolves, who “feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.”

Sheepdogs, who “live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.”

“If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf.

But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.”

I’m against war and violence in general, but there are times when it is required. I find pure pacifism to be unrealistic and actually unloving in many cases. Note that when I say pacifist I am using the Dictionary.com definition of “a person who is opposed to war or to violence of any kind” (emphasis added).

In this metaphor, there is nothing wrong with being sheep. What is wrong is the naive assumption that we will ever be able to live without sheepdogs. One thing that bothers me about some pacifists is not only their lack of gratitude but their contempt for those who protect them.

A thought from George Orwell:

We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm.

There is a spiritual parallel as well. Consider all the wolves in sheep’s clothing who eternally danger people with their lies about God. Not everyone is equipped to battle those wolves, but some of us have worked hard to know how to refute their lies. We don’t expect everyone to do what we do, but we do appreciate it when people don’t blame us for being “divisive” or some such thing. We tend to be intrinsically motivated, though I will say that I get the nicest notes from time to time from people who agree completely with the views here but are too afraid to say so publicly. I’m fine with that. It is nice to know that they pray and are supportive.

Hey single people: Want to increase your chances of divorce? Then do one or more of the following:

Have premarital sex

Cohabitate

“Marry” someone of the same sex

Don’t attend church regularly and pray together — Some surveys will say that Christians have similar divorce rates compared to the rest of the culture, but if you drill deeper you’ll find that those who are serious about their faith and not just checking the “cultural Christian” box have much lower rates.

Female unions seem to have the highest divorce rates, followed by male unions, followed by opposite sex unions.

“For Sweden, the divorce risk for partnerships of men is 50% higher than the risk for heterosexual marriages, and that the divorce risk for female partnerships is nearly double that for men.”

“For Norway, divorce risks are 77% higher in lesbian partnerships than in those of gay men.” (The Norwegian data did not include a comparison with opposite sex couples.)

Do you know what else is bad for relationships? Premarital sex and cohabitation. And that’s not my opinion, those are the facts. (See the studies below) Either we are going to get serious about constraining our selfish behavior to protect children from instability, or worse, or children are going to suffer. When adults substitute their own selfish ideologies for God’s design for marriage, children suffer.

Sweden is having major problems with the growth of Islam. The country is often held up as an example of how swell things can be if you ignore God, but they are finding out the that the “reap what you sow” part from Galatians is true. Sure, people may enjoy sin for a time, but it always leads to pain.

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“Expelled! Exposed” Exposed – a thorough set of rebuttals to the criticisms of the documentary. It highlights some of Richard Dawkins’ lies about the making of the movie, among other things (though to his credit he sort-of apologized).

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Why can’t Prosperity Pulpit Pimps manage their own money and follow their own advice to solve their financial problems? The video is nauseating. These people are crooks. As awful as this economic mess is I hope it cleans out some of the fakers. Maybe some of their gullible followers will see the light.

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Obama used a logical fallacy-fest to rationalize Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Fact: This is the government funded destruction of human beings for scientific research. All the emotional pleas about getting in the way of cures fail for multiple reasons.

If ESCR is such a swell idea, why hasn’t private money supported it?

It is cloning, regardless of whether it is therapeutic cloning or reproductive cloning. In Obama’s world it is only bad cloning if you let the human being live to be delivered. As long as you destroy him or her it is OK.

When presidential candidate Barack Obama visited the Saddleback Civil Forum in California in August 2008, he gave his views on marriage: “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.”

Yet, the new administration’s actual policies and planned actions for marriage are stated much differently. The new administration…

It only makes sense that those who oppose the 2nd Amendment may eventually oppose your 1st Amendment rights to speak about the 2nd Amendment. You won’t be able to defend your 1st Amendment rights when they take away your guns.

I am updating this in light of the current gun debate and added some thoughts on the spiritual parallels.

A now-defunct blog made some important distinctions between three types of people:

Sheep, the “kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep.”

Wolves, who “feed on the sheep without mercy. Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.”

Sheepdogs, who “live to protect the flock and confront the wolf.”

“If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf.

But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.”

I’m against war and violence in general, but there are times when it is required. I find pure pacifism to be unrealistic and actually unloving in many cases. Note that when I say pacifist I am using the Dictionary.com definition of “a person who is opposed to war or to violence of any kind” (emphasis added).

In this metaphor, there is nothing wrong with being sheep. What is wrong is the naive assumption that we will ever be able to live without sheepdogs. One thing that bothers me about some pacifists is not only their lack of gratitude but their contempt for those who protect them.

A closing thought from George Orwell:

We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm.

There is a spiritual parallel as well. Consider all the wolves in sheep’s clothing who eternally danger people with their lies about God.